OBJECTIVES: Few studies have examined sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) in college students even though extant research suggests a higher prevalence rate of SCT symptoms in this population compared to general adult or youth samples. The current study examined SCT symptoms in relation to two domains related to college student's academic success, study skills and daily life executive functioning (EF), as well as specific domains of functional impairment. METHOD: 158 undergraduate students (Mage = 19...

BACKGROUND: A growing number of studies have investigated delay discounting, a behavioral economic index of impulsivity, and its relevance to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but with mixed findings. The current meta-analysis synthesizes the literature on the relationship between monetary delay discounting and ADHD in studies using case-control designs. Specifically, the objectives were: 1) to characterize the aggregated differences in monetary delay discounting between individuals with ADHD (cases) and controls in studies using categorical case-control designs; 2) to examine potential differences based on sample age (<18 vs...

Excessive calorie intake constitutes a global public health concern, due to its associated range of untoward outcomes. Gambling is commonplace and gambling disorder is now considered a behavioral addiction in DSM-5. The relationships between calorie intake, gambling, and other types of putatively addictive and impulsive behaviors have received virtually no research attention. Two-hundred twenty-five young adults who gamble were recruited from two Mid-Western university communities in the United States using media advertisements...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms frequently occur in individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). While there is evidence that both ADHD and ASD have differential structural brain correlates, knowledge of the structural brain profile of individuals with ADHD with raised ASD symptoms is limited. The presence of ASD-like symptoms was measured by the Children's Social Behavior Questionnaire (CSBQ) in a sample of typically developing controls (n = 154), participants with ADHD (n = 239), and their unaffected siblings (n = 144) between the ages of 8 and 29...

Temporal Discounting (TD) reflects a tendency to discount a reward more deeply the longer its delivery is delayed. TD tasks and behavioral scales have been used to investigate 'hot' executive functions in ADHD. The present study analyzed TD task performance shown by ADHD and control groups for correlations with emotional self-regulation metrics from two scales, the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functions (BRIEF) and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Children (ages 8-12) with ADHD (n=25) and controls (n=24) were assessed using material rewards (toys) for three types of task: Hypothetical (H); Hypothetical with temporal expectation (HTE); and Real (R)...

Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is often assumed to be associated with increased engagement in risk-taking behaviors. The current study sought to understand the mental processes underlying this association using a theory-driven behavioral economics perspective. Psychological risk-return models suggest that risk and benefit are inherently subjective, and risk taking is best understood as the interplay between cognitions and motivations regarding the benefits and risks of alternatives. A sample of 244 adults was assessed for ADHD symptoms...

BACKGROUND: Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) shows clear, albeit heterogeneous, cognitive dysfunctions. However, personality traits are not well understood in adults with ADHD, and it is unclear whether they are predisposing factors or phenotypical facets of the condition. AIMS: To assess whether personality traits of impulsivity, sensation seeking and sensitivity to punishment and reward are predisposing factors for ADHD or aspects of the clinical phenotype...

BACKGROUND: Changes in reward processing are thought to be involved in the etiology of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as other developmental disorders. In addition, different forms of therapy for ADHD rely on reinforcement principles. As such, improved understanding of reward processing in ADHD could eventually lead to more effective treatment options. However, differences in reward processing may not be specific to ADHD, but may be a trans-diagnostic feature of disorders that involve ADHD-like symptoms...

Birthweight is a marker for suboptimal fetal growth and development in utero. Offspring can be born large for gestational age (LGA), which is linked to maternal obesity or excessive gestational weight gain, as well as small for gestational age (SGA), arising from nutrient or calorie deficiency, placental dysfunction, or other maternal conditions (hypertension, infection). In humans, LGA and SGA babies are at an increased risk for certain neurodevelopmental disorders, including Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, schizophrenia, and social and mood disorders...

BACKGROUND: A computer-based game, named Timo's Adventure, was developed to assess specific cognitive functions (eg, attention, planning, and working memory), time perception, and reward mechanisms in young school-aged children. The game consists of 6 mini-games embedded in a story line and includes fantasy elements to enhance motivation. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the validity of Timo's Adventure in normally developing children and in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)...

BACKGROUND: The behavioral sensitivity of children with ADHD to punishment has received limited theoretical and experimental attention. This study evaluated the effects of punishment on the response allocation of children with ADHD and typically developing children. METHOD: Two hundred and ten children, 145 diagnosed with ADHD, completed an operant task in which they chose between playing two simultaneously available games. Reward was arranged symmetrically across the games under concurrent variable interval schedules...

Anhedonia, defined as the state of reduced ability to experience feelings of pleasure, is one of the hallmarks of depression. Hedonic tone is the trait underlying one's characteristic ability to feel pleasure. Low hedonic tone represents a reduced capacity to experience pleasure, thus increasing the likelihood of experiencing anhedonia. Low hedonic tone has been associated with several psychopathologies, including major depressive disorder (MDD), substance use, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)...

This study examined reward-related decision-making in children and adolescents with ADHD in a social context, using economic games. We furthermore examined the role of individual differences in reward-related decision-making, specifically, the roles of reward sensitivity and prosocial skills. Children and adolescents (9-17 years) with ADHD-combined subtype (n = 29; 20 boys) and healthy controls (n = 38; 20 boys) completed the ultimatum game and dictator game as measures of reward-related decision-making in social contexts...

Cognitive control is subjectively costly, suggesting that engagement is modulated in relationship to incentive state. Dopamine appears to play key roles. In particular, dopamine may mediate cognitive effort by two broad classes of functions: (1) modulating the functional parameters of working memory circuits subserving effortful cognition, and (2) mediating value-learning and decision-making about effortful cognitive action. Here, we tie together these two lines of research, proposing how dopamine serves "double duty", translating incentive information into cognitive motivation...

Recent theories of decision making propose a shared value-related brain mechanism for encoding monetary and social rewards. We tested this model in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and control children. We monitored participants' brain dynamics using high density-electroencephalography while they played a monetary and social reward tasks. Control children exhibited a feedback Error-Related Negativity (fERN) modulation and Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) source activation during both tasks...

BACKGROUND: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show significant behavioural and genetic overlap. Both ADHD and ASD are characterised by poor performance on a range of cognitive tasks. In particular, increased response time variability (RTV) is a promising indicator of risk for both ADHD and ASD. However, it is not clear whether different indices of RTV and changes to RTV according to task conditions are able to discriminate between the two disorders...

OBJECTIVE: Individuals with ADHD have been shown to prefer smaller sooner over larger later rewards. This has been explained in terms of abnormally steeper discounting of the value of delayed reinforcers. Evidence for this comes from different experimental paradigms. In some, participants experience delay in the laboratory (real-time delay tasks; R-TD), in others they imagine the delay to reinforcers (hypothetical delay tasks; HD). METHOD: We directly contrasted the performance of 7- to 12-year-old children with ADHD (n = 23) and matched controls (n = 23) on R-TD and HD tasks with monetary rewards...

Although the relationship between criminal activity and ADHD has been heavily studied, this paper reviews a largely neglected area of academic discourse: how symptoms of ADHD that often contribute to offending behavior may also potentially create further problems for offenders with ADHD after they come into contact with the criminal justice system and pilot their way through the legal process. The main symptoms of ADHD that are primarily connected to criminal offending are examined and contextualized with respect to diagnosed offenders' experiences with the justice system...